B. Radtz
Playwright Stacy Osei-Kuffour has been tapped to write the Marvel’s ‘Blade the Vampire Hunter’ relaunch, starring Mahershala Ali. This will be the first black female scribe to write a Marvel film franchise.
This isn’t Osei-Kuffour’s first foray into the comic to live action medium, having served as a story editor and writer for HBO’s Watchmen, which earned her a WGA for best new series. She was also nominated for an Emmy for her work on the Hulu original animated series, Pen15, and was recognized for work on Amazon’s Hunters series chronicling Nazi hunters.
Mahershala Ali returns to Marvel as the titular hero, after previously appearing in the NETFLIX Marvel series Luke Cage, as villain Cottonmouth. Ali is a two time Oscar winner for 2019 film the Green Book, and 2017 film Moonlight.
Marvel has spent the last six months working directly with Ali, meticulously searching for a writer for the film, focusing on approaching black writers, as part of their effort to focus on diversity and representation when dealing with their film properties, especially in regards to non-white characters.
Blade, a human vampire hybrid after his mother was bitten by vampire Deacon Frost while pregnant, was created in Tomb of Dracula #10, by writer Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, has been a cult hit with Marvel’s horror franchise of characters. Blade has been portrayed in several forms of media, comics, live action television series, animated series, video games, and most famously a Wesley Snipes lead vehicle Blade film series.